The Au Gres-Sims School District
www.ags-schools.org
Hello and Happy Fall Friday Au Gres-Sims Families,
In the buildings the students have done an amazing job of wearing their masks properly as they go about their day. One thing that has come to our attention is that many of the masks are getting wet toward the second half of the day. To combat this we would like to encourage you to send a second mask to school each day with your child and our teachers will be working with our students to change their masks after lunch.
Our Great Start Readiness Program (GSRP) kicks off next week with our first day with students being Thursday, October 22nd. Ms. Sanchez and the rest of the campus is excited to meet the next and newest Wolverines and to welcome them into our Au Gres-Sims school community.
In other news, the Board of Education meeting on Monday, October 19th will be held in-person in the Cyber Cafe. Due to emergency order limitations on the number of people that may gather in an interior space, we are limited to 60 participants and everyone is required to wear a mask and provide contact tracing information at the door.
On the construction front, wonderful progress was made this week despite some chilly fall weather. The majority of the interior work has been completed and on the outside of the building our new sidewalks and all concrete was laid this week for the drop off loop and front parking lot. We are expecting blacktop to be laid next week so stay tuned for updates on the quickly approaching conclusion of our construction project!
I will close in saying that despite the need for changes in order to bring back our students for in-person learning, there is a palpable energy in the air. You can feel the desire of our students to learn and see the energy and excitement that comes along with the learning process in all of their eyes. It is a joy for me to bear witness to the incredible efforts our staff are putting in and the flexibility of our students and families to make this whole thing work. The feeling of #AGSInThisTogether is real and it is a wonderful thing.
Have a great weekend AGS Community,
Mr. Ming
This upcoming week we will be having school pictures taken on Monday and Thursday mornings. For the elementary school, their primary day will be Monday, with Thursday left open for retakes. For the MS/HS, these two days are split to account for the two day a week schedule of our Maroon and Gold groups. For students that are 100% virtual, you are welcome to have pictures taken on either of these days with virtual elementary students utilizing the morning time from 8:00-11:00 and our virtual MS/HS students utilizing the afternoon time from 12:30-2:30. Any student who still needs retakes after next Thursday will have these taken in January when our new semester has started and new students have enrolled.
Unfortunately, the parking lot is still not ready. As a result, we will continue with the current pick up/drop off times and locations. In addition, Mrs. Jantzi’s hallway “office” will remain in the same spot until the parking lot is complete and we are able to use the main office for normal everyday functioning.
As we get closer to the wrap up of construction projects, we are looking forward to hosting home sporting events. Although the parking lot is not yet finished, we will end up utilizing parking along the street and out back of the MS/HS. As a reminder, for all indoor sporting events, there are no indoor concessions, face coverings must be worn, and all individuals must sign in at the door and include their phone number for contact tracing. Thanks for doing your part in allowing our indoor sporting events to take place.
From the Desk of Mrs. Socha
It was another great week with students back on campus. I am so proud of how hard the students have been working on their NWEA assessments. Secondary students have been very patient and resilient completing 2 assessments on the days that they are in session. I have also been holding multiple sessions each day for our virtual students to come in and test as well. It is very important for us to have this data and I am looking forward to diving into it all to see where our biggest needs are. Make-up testing will take place next week, wrapping up our NWEA testing window.
We are also looking forward to getting some things back up and running now that we are back in school. For example, last year our middle school students participated in a program called House. We were really having some wonderful competitions between our middle school Houses, and we were seeing great things as a result. We are planning on continuing this program this year and extending it up through the high school as well. We are hoping that a lot of student leadership opportunities will come from some of the plans that we had in the works back in the spring to expand the House program. Although we will have to make some adjustments to our original plans, I am very excited to start back up with our House competitions for the 2nd marking period!
Finally, we have sent several important pieces of communication out in the last few days. Parent/Student/Teacher compacts went home this week with elementary and maroon students, and will go out on Monday for our gold students. These documents are a very important piece to our continuous improvement plan, so please review this document with your student, then sign and return it as soon as possible! Elementary and middle school students will also receive a parent/school connection newsletter, following the same schedule as the compacts. Virtual students will receive these documents electronically. Also, videos outlining our TItle I program as well as the Read by Grade 3 Law were released this week. These presentations are typically done at a face-to-face parent meeting each fall, but due to Covid restrictions, we have recorded these for you to watch at your convenience. These videos will also be available on the AGS Learning Resources page under the “Parent Resources” tab. If you have any questions regarding the information presented in these videos, please contact me.
Upcoming Events
Tuesday 10/20 - Varsity TRI Home with WP/Oscoda 6pm
Wednsday 10/21 - Junior High Football @ Hale 6 pm
Thursday 10/22 - JV/Varsity Volleyball Home vs Alcona 6 pm
Friday 10/23 - Varsity Football @ Mio 7 pm
Saturday 10/24 - JV Volleyball Quad with SSC freshman, Hillman and SSC JV 10 am
Au Gres-Sims School District
Email: web@ags-schools.org
Website: www.ags-schools.org
Location: 310 South Court Street, Au Gres, MI, USA
Phone: (989) 876-7150
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AuGresSims/?ref=br_rs
Twitter: @agsschools